r/AskAnAussieBroker

I know absolutely nothing about the process but am keen to get some advice from you lovely people please!

I'm on 140k and my partner is a sole trader, the next year coming up is looking for her to be around 30k but her previous year was 60k - unfortunately at the moment pretty variable. We have three dependants, no outstanding loans (car and HECS all taken care of previously) and are fairly sensible with saving. Paying 2600 a month in rent and putting away roughly 2k a fortnight in savings (currently at 63k).

I'm sort of resigned to never owning a house - is there any path here to a decent loan?

To put some numbers around it, assume a $750,000, 30-year loan and a lender assessment rate of (6.2%) 9.2%. These are rough illustrations; your result will depend on income, expenses, loan terms and lender policy.

$10,000 credit card limit: The full limit is counted in servicing, even if the card has no balance. At an assessed repayment of 3% a month, that’s $300 a month, which is roughly equivalent to $37,000 less borrowing capacity. Reducing the limit or closing a card you no longer need can improve your borrowing capacity.

$30,000 car loan: The lender counts the required repayment, not just the balance. If the repayment is about $600 a month, that’s roughly equivalent to $73,000 less borrowing capacity. The actual repayment depends on the rate and time left on the loan.

A dependant: There isn’t a standard dollar deduction for each child. As an illustration, if the lender’s expense assessment rises by $500 a month, that could mean roughly $61,000 less borrowing capacity.

Each 0.25% increase in the assessed home loan rate: On these assumptions, the maximum loan falls by roughly $16,000. The actual repayment on a $750,000 loan would also rise, but the borrowing capacity change depends on the lender’s calculator.
Property ownership and loan structure matter too. A trust or SPV doesn’t automatically remove a debt from servicing; the lender may consider the entity’s obligations and any guarantees.

APRA’s guidance describes assessing revolving credit commitments at 3% of the limit per month as one approach, and the standard mortgage serviceability buffer is currently 3 percentage points. These examples use that 3% card assumption and a 30-year loan assessed at 9.2%.

Owned property overseas (sold 1.5 years ago) - do I qualify as FHB in Canberra? Aussie home loan said yes but Google says no...

Need some wisdom. Been mucking around with LendScope (beta version broking calc) and keep hitting this hurdle. Am I pretty much over leveraged? 1 paid off PPOR, 2 investment properties, looking at a third.